In order to facilitate and to make the handling of sequencies of images obtained during exams on the human body by means of imaging photographing devices, such as CT or MRI, during a reading of these images by a radiologist, there are functionality means provided in a computer workstation for reading these images. On a workstation for diagnostic image reading there is often a functionality called Dynamic Display Protocols (DDPs) installed. This is a set of rules that automatically decides how to present, on one or more monitors, the material available for reading.
Most workstations for diagnostic image reading support some sort of DDP concept. Different implementations of DDPs support different degrees of flexibility. Some of these simply check what type of image series is currently displayed and select a preset way of displaying the images. Other implementations take a lot of variables into consideration, such as, which user is viewing the images, what kind of examination has been performed, what kind of prior exams are available for comparison etc.
A DDP selected contain information about how the image material shall be presented. This information may be as simple as setting rules regarding how a screen on a monitor is divided to display a single series or it may contain quite complicated settings regarding which prior images to display together with the actual images, how to organize the images over the available monitors and image settings for individual images. This presentation specification associated with the Dynamic Display Protocol is called, in this connection, a hanging protocol. The hanging protocol usually includes information regarding the image series placement, viewing mode, layout, window width-level (W/L) settings, zoom and pan, image orientation, sorting of the series, splitting of the series into pseudo-series, stages etc. The use of hanging protocols in this branch of technology is disclosed in, for example, patent document EP 1 207 683 A2 and in the article: “Moise, Adrian & Atkins, M. Stella; Workflow oriented hanging protocols for radiology workstation; Proceedings of SPIE—The international Society for Optical Engineering, Volume 4685, 2002, pages 189–199. All of the contents of said documents are hereby included by reference into this description.
A clinical application is, in this context, a special application that performs a set of specific clinical tasks on a set of images. The clinical applications are not part of the diagnostic workstation software, but are external applications installed afterwards as helpware. However, the clinical applications may be started with a command available inside the diagnostic workstation software, whereby the desired clinical application is started and runs in a clinical context that is the same as for that of the workstation software in use. The context of the clinical application may include, such information as, patient, examinations and images. Some examples of clinical applications are: 3D rendering applications, Multi Planar Reconstruction and Orthopedic tools. Further examples of clinical applications are: Advanced measurement tools, Cardiology tools, Treatment planning, Image processing and analysis applications, CT and MR tools, Nuclear medicine tools, Teaching files and encyclopeida types of applications, Reporting tools. Computer Aided Diagnosis tools.
A clinical application can be an in-process plug-in, typically a dynamically loaded library or an external application running in its own address space. The important part is that it is started from inside the diagnostic workstation and automatically runs in the correct clinical context indicated by the user.
On the radiology workstation several clinical applications may be installed. DDPs today, as described, allow the diagnostic workstation software to present images series from examinations in a pre-defined way based on user preference and other criteria. However, if a certain clinical application is used regularly in the clinical work, that certain application needs to be started manually every time.